In a deal made by literary agent David Kuhn, “the Josephine Baker of ’70s runway modeling” — as described by André Leon Talley — will write her memoirs for editor Dawn Davis’ imprint 37 INK, at Atria/Simon & Schuster.

Born in New York City to a black mother from the South and a white Swedish father, Cleveland was discovered by Diana Vreeland at age 15. She was featured in Vogue for her homemade clothes, and courted by Cassius Clay before he became Muhammad Ali.

Cleveland was a muse to Stephen Burrows, Halston and Karl Lagerfeld and a friend of Andy Warhol and the ’70s jet-set crowd. In other words, she has lots of beans to spill.